We've come to an interesting place in our journey with the superbosses. We've talked about a lot of stuff, and I'm going to share with you in this video, I am going to say it's an unusual thing that happens. Not everybody's going to like it, but it happens and it's going to happen whether you like it or not, so we might as well learn how to deal with it, and it's the following. If you do all the things or a lot of the things we've been talking about, from hiring a great talent, motivating them with the Yin and Yang and crafting this compelling vision, communicating effectively, unleashing the creativity of people around you, and then developing them as a master-apprentice and all the different ways we talked about in Module 3, what kind of talent you're going to have? What kind of people you're going to have? What kind of team will you have? You're going to have superstars. You can have unbelievable talent. Some of those people, not all, but some of those people are going to want to go. They're going to want to have your job, or your boss' job, or they're going to want to go find a place where they could have a bigger canvas to play. We might not like that some of these great people leave, but it's going to happen. In a way, you have a choice, when it comes to talent. We can hire and develop people who will reach a natural ceiling and we can keep them for a long, long time, or we could cultivate a new generation of talent that intends to maybe even surpass you and we can help them do it. These super performers will not be satisfied playing second fiddle. Unless we can keep growing at a pace that constantly opens up new opportunities for your people and for your stars, best solution of everything, the more you grow, the more opportunities there are. We're going to lose some people. It's just the way it is, and importantly, it's what people want. Millennials and Gen Z, they're not talking about staying in the same job for 25 years. They're not expecting to get the watch after 25 years, even an Apple watch I don't think is going to do it for them. They're looking to move, they're looking to adjust, they're looking to create new opportunities for themselves. It's the way it is. When I was doing the research and before I wrote this book, the Superbosses book, I talked to a lot of people to share some of my findings, some of my insights, some of the surprising things that were coming up. One CEO that I know, I shared with him what I just said to you, and he said to me, he looks me in the eye and he says, "Why would I want to let my best people go?" It's quite a question. We understand where that question is coming from, but take note of the words he uses. Why would I want to let my best people go? Is it the case that any one of us, no matter what it is we do, can force people to work for us? I don't think it works that way. All of us are free agents. All of us can move and adjust and create new job opportunities and leave if we want to. There are lots of reasons why we might not want to, I got that, but there's nothing that forces us to stay. When the CEO says, "I don't want to let my best people go," it's not up to you. That is one of these switches in our brains that we need to do. The superboss practices may very well lead to some good people wanting to go, to go on to bigger things. There's good news, though, that comes with this because if you have a system where people keep coming into the organization, into your teams and they do well, you're going to become a talent magnet and a talent magnet is a pretty powerful thing. I mean, think about how hard it is to get great people. Well, imagine now that you begin to gain a little reputation in your company, in your business, that people that work for you, well, that's a fast track to success. You think some of the best, highest aspiration, talented people are going to want to find you, going to want to seek you out, are going to want to try to work with you? I mean, that's exactly what happened with George Lucas when people would come at all hours of the day to Skywalker Ranch to try to get a job with him because he was this talent magnet. People that worked for George Lucas went on to great things. A talent magnet is a pretty powerful idea, I think, when you get right down to it, but there's a few other things that we want to think about. From the point of view of the individual contributor, or the team member, or for the manager for that matter, if you want to move forward, if you want to move up in your job, if you're campaigning or are asking to get a bigger promotion, there is a really important question you have to answer, which is, well, who's going to do your job? It's actually a litmus test that I've seen some pretty smart executives and managers do. When somebody seems like they're ready to move forward and move up to a bigger opportunity, the question you ask them is, well, who's going to do your job? The only answer we could think of is, are we training our own successors no matter what it is that we're doing? There are so many examples of this and I don't think everyone really thinks about it. For example, back in at Dartmouth, a few years ago, there was a choir that was created by a really talented junior at college, and he created, he involves some community members in the choir, and it was wonderful. He was a really creative talent. He did this and he had organizational skills to do it, and then he became a senior. I remember talking to him. I really enjoy going to the concerts that they put on and I asked them, "You're graduating in six months, who's going to take your position here? Who's going to lead the choir after you?" He looked at me and like it didn't even occur to him. Now he was 21 years old, so okay, that's fine. He might not think about it. But without that successor, without training the next generation, it's going to be very difficult to continue anything that you're doing. In that instance, in fact, he didn't do that and he didn't get around to that and there is no such choir now at Dartmouth that did what he did. From a superboss point of view, from a managerial point of view, from a leadership point of view, we have a choice. You have a choice. If somebody comes to you and says they want to leave. They have this great opportunity. They want to go and take on this great new job and you've helped them, put them in a position to be ready for that job, you have a choice. Your choice is, well, react with anger and say don't let the door smack you on the way out. You are finished because this person left, or you could think about how to maybe try to continue to yield a return on investment from all the work you did to help other people get better. I think when you frame it that way, as I just did with you right now, it seems pretty obvious. How do you do that? Well, I'll give you two examples: Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live. A few years ago, it wasn't a shock to know that people like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, superstar talents, they were getting opportunities. They were going to leave. There's nothing Lorne Michaels could possibly have done to keep them from going. What do you do? Well, it turns out Lorne Michaels is pretty smart and he's bought into this idea of continuing yield and generate a return on investment from all the work that he did with these people to help them get to the position they're in. So he negotiates with NBC and helps Jimmy Fallon become the host of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. By the way, who is one of the executive producers of that show? It's Lorne Michaels. That's right. You could say the same thing about Amy Poehler's show, about Tina Fey and the first show that she came up with 30 Rock, and of course, Seth Meyers is still on TV with a Late Show as well as a talk show. You can figure out ways in which you can continue to interact and help them, but also benefit yourself. This happens in mainstream companies as well, not just in the entertainment world. Tommy Frist, as I said a few times, was the CEO of Hospital Corporation of America. He had several top lieutenants, people directly reporting to him that were ready to become CEOs. They had the talent, the ability, the aspiration. So what he did is he started to create a couple of spin-off businesses, a mental health clinic, a surgical care business, and he created them as startups, installed his right-hand man or woman, both came, one time was a man one time a woman, as the CEO of that company. These people that worked for him for years, they were going to fulfill their dream because they were going to run a business and they were going to be a CEO, and Tommy Frist helped them do it. Tommy Frist and HCA also own some of the equity in those companies. You see, it's just a matter of being, as always, creative and thinking about this a little bit differently. There are some odd things that could happen sometimes when you have a great talent that want to walk out the door, but how are you going to treat them? How are you going to think about them? If your reaction is to be emotional, you'll lose. The return on investment ends right there. If your reaction is let's help them get there and let's think about how we can partner in some way to benefit both of us, that's where the action is, and that's really what superbosses will do and something that you should think about as well.
